Social Impacts

The Sunrise Project, along with a held lease in the southern Athabasca region called Kirby as well as a project to massively expand refineries in both Ohio and Indiana to take tar sands bitumen, are projects that involve BP (British Petroleum) and would signify a new level of depravity for the former "Beyond Petroleum" company headquartered in London near the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and others investing in these disastrous projects.

--M

Husky earnings 'surprise' affects shares
Analysts predict slow growth for energy firm

By Dina O'Meara, Calgary Herald

While Corporate fronts like the CBI and others have promoted "trading" "permission" for the Mackenzie Gas Project as a way to get "more" protected areas in exchange for this development, the reality is that construction of this pipeline is not only awful in and of its own right, it is also development that pertains to the beginning-- not the end-- of development of the entire north in terms of industrialization. This polemic has been raised many times before-- but the fact that developers are speaking openly stating this fact is something to grasp immediately.

Enbridge opens oilsands terminal.
By Dave Cooper, Canwest News Service
October 20, 2009

HARDISTY, Alta. - Oil pipeline giant Enbridge officially opened its new contract terminal in Hardisty on Tuesday, a 19-tank facility capable of holding 7.5 million barrels of crude oil from the oilsands.

One of the largest in North America, the Hardisty terminal, is the starting place for two major pipelines that will initially carry one million barrels a day of bitumen to United States markets.

Greenwashing the globe

Adrian Parr believes that the sustainability movement has been hijacked

Mark Hopkins
Urban Living
October 15, 2009

Once upon a time, “sustainability” was a buzzword for hippies and
activists, shouted through megaphones with increasing frustration at an
SUV-driving, suburb-loving public. For a while, that uphill battle seemed
more like a downward spiral.

But things have changed: Now, sustainability is everywhere! Laundry
detergent comes in green bottles, leaf-patterns are plastered all over gas

Oilsands worker killed in accident
By Ben Gelinas,
edmontonjournal.com
October 19, 2009

EDMONTON — A 22-year-old vacuum truck operator has been killed on a northeastern Alberta oilsands site.

Occupational Health and Safety said he had likely just finished cleaning out the tank of the truck, used to suck up drilling mud, at about 5 p.m. on Saturday when the door to the tank closed on his head. A driver was at the controls.

The man was working for Fehr Quality Contractors at the Statoil-Hydro plant near Conklin, about 300 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, OHS said.

The Slow Road to Conservation:
Northwest Territories Protected Areas Strategy

from "Offsetting Resistance: The effects of foundation funding from the Great Bear Rainforest to the Athabasca River", a special report by Dru Oja Jay and Macdonald Stainsby. Released September, 2009.

Testimony from Petr Cizek:

On a cost basis, carbon-capture projects are madness

The small reductions gained by staggering per-tonne costs illustrate what
every independent analyst knows: The Harper government's 20-per-cent
reduction target will not be met

Jeffrey Simpson
The Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009 5:50PM EDT

Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes so many spending announcements, flying
like Mary Poppins on speed around the country to distribute billions of
dollars, that the news media have given up analyzing any of them.

This project was originally led by Petro Canada, the official energy supplier to the 2010 Olympic Games, until the entire company was recently bought up by Suncor Energy.

Sadly, industry representatives continue to show their wonderful even handed nature and behaviour towards anyone and anything that may (or, may not) be the slightest bit deviant from their basic line of total production everywhere, at all times, and intimidate and harass those who defy it. As such, the article below was removed from this site after a series of bizarre threats for posting the article.

Greenpeace lawyer slams Alberta Premier Stelmach
Slave River Journal, October 14, 2009

The lawyer defending Greenpeace’s oilsands activists says Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is using his political position to try to influence the legal system and prevent a fair trial.
Brian Beresh, a well-known Albertan defense lawyer, has taken on the case of 16 activists arrested during a protest at Shell’s Scotford upgrader on October 3.

Nexen says oilsands to triple production
Cities Commit To Cut Emissions

By Dan Healing, Calgary Herald
October 8, 2009

CALGARY - The Alberta oilsands will triple production to three million barrels of oil per day, Marvin Romanow, president and chief executive of Nexen Inc., predicted Thursday, adding he's confident it will happen but is a little hazy on the timeline.